The NHL gave their final offer - which I think gave away the store - this afternoon and said there was no room to negotiate. That was their final offer. And they come back with a cap that is outrageously higher than the one the NHL put forth?

Good night Irene.

Don :

First rule of negotiating... no offer is final until there are signatures on the document....

Or the season officially gets canceled without another offer

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

$7 million is significant; if and only if you regard these as real proposals.

Both sides A: do not want to accept the first offer that comes their way and B: do not want to be the party that effectively cancels the season by rejecting a proposal without offering a counter-proposal. Again, it's going to be a lot more than $105 million that the players (and owners) will be losing if they blow up the season, so the elements for a deal are all certainly here.

Has, you can't say "this is our final offer" and expect someone to accept it. The PA has already bent over backwards in capitulating to the cap, and doing so in a real way. Both sides need to be able to declare a victory for this to work. If the NHL says "f-off, 42.5 was as high as we will go", they will have given the PR victory right over to the players, which is unacceptable when they've been winning from Day One.

This post nails it. Tri, while we may not always agree on stuff, I really have to give you credit here.

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"The greatest trick Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

Hasan, Brian and I blog at New York Puck. Devils, Islanders, Rangers and Sabres.

this will get done at the last second - owners will probably counter at 43-44, maybe 45 MAX, i would think. but everything that has happened over the past day or two is a sign that a deal is imminent. its the only thing that makes sense at this stage.

Has, I wasn't suggesting that they should increase rosters. I was just wondering how people were forgetting that current rosters were at 23 NOW. People were saying they were at 20 and some were talking about taking them up to 27. I was just saying they weren't at 20...just the actual players in any game were. I thought I might have missed some effort by the owners to cut roster size somewhere along the way.

Derek, in terms of JD wanting the 'cap' at $45-46 million, he doesn't even think it should be an actual cap, he wants high-spending teams to be able to go above it. He was pretty clear about that.

Honestly, if the two sides can't reach an agreement now, they have no more excuses. They both have made concessions and aren't that far apart. Just compromise and they can save what little season there is left but gain back some credibility in the public eye. Losing an entire year is suicidal. They need to get it done.

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"The greatest trick Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist."

Hasan, Brian and I blog at New York Puck. Devils, Islanders, Rangers and Sabres.

Has, I wasn't suggesting that they should increase rosters. I was just wondering how people were forgetting that current rosters were at 23 NOW. People were saying they were at 20 and some were talking about taking them up to 27. I was just saying they weren't at 20...just the actual players in any game were. I thought I might have missed some effort by the owners to cut roster size somewhere along the way.

I assumed they wanted active rosters to increase from 20 to whatever like baseball did when they increased rosters from 24 to 25 a couple decades ago, but I didn't read the posts carefully and increasing the active roster wouldn't work anyway, the symmetry of having four even lines and three even D-pairings I don't think can really be tampered with. Increasing the inactive roster might be something else, but I don't think it's really neccesary to go above 24.

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"The Devils have high standards, that's the difference. We have a standard to live up to every year, and a couple of teams in our area don't have the standards we do." - Pat Burns

The New Jersey Devils win Stanley Cups everywhere:-NHL record for most road wins in the playoffs - 10-1 in '95 and 10-2 in '00-NHL record for most home wins in the playoffs - 12-1 in '03

"The New York football Giants marched into Little D and made 'America's Team' their prison bitch....[and next week the G-Men] will push the Packers up and down the frozen tundra like their own private zamboni!" -- Carl from Adult Swim

I refuse to believe the owners won't budge at least 2.5 from there supposed "final offer. Come back with 45 million and we might have a season. You've got the rollback, a luxury tax, and a high enough cap where it can't really be considered a true cap.

CBA is short, only 6 years, heck they'll start building up the warchests again by 2009. It's

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^7^ is just defending his sport sheeps.. as Alcibiades the exiled Athenian rationalizes in his speech to the enemy Spartans, he wants to take revenge on Athens because he loves it and can't stand to see the state it's in now - Triumph

the players wouldn't get pissed off by less ice time if they get paid more.

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^7^ is just defending his sport sheeps.. as Alcibiades the exiled Athenian rationalizes in his speech to the enemy Spartans, he wants to take revenge on Athens because he loves it and can't stand to see the state it's in now - Triumph

"The New York football Giants marched into Little D and made 'America's Team' their prison bitch....[and next week the G-Men] will push the Packers up and down the frozen tundra like their own private zamboni!" -- Carl from Adult Swim

now they're splitting hairs(millions) here. But they're not far apart. how hard can it be to meet in the middle at around 46 mil. The players budged from no cap, to 52, to 49. They might budge a little more but eventually they might dig in. That's the risk Bettman takes. Somebody come in with 46 and end this thing!

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^7^ is just defending his sport sheeps.. as Alcibiades the exiled Athenian rationalizes in his speech to the enemy Spartans, he wants to take revenge on Athens because he loves it and can't stand to see the state it's in now - Triumph